Re: Hundreds of Colorado students protest history curriculum
The act of instilling a sense of national pride is in fact... indoctrination.
No it isn't... Political indoctrination is what's been going on in our schools for at least the last 40 years. They have been slowly removing the things in Americas history that made us great and set us apart from the rest of the world, and filling the gaps with the darker, more controversial episodes in our past with little in the way of balance and context.
The focus has seemed to shift away from things like being the worlds #1 force for good when evil rears it's ugly head, for being the most charitable nation on earth, the first in line to offer money, food, medicine, supplies and man power when disaster strikes, and for having a military that has fought and died for the freedom of more people that it didn't even know, than every army, in every nations on the planet combined. Kids used to be taught that we are a nation that acts with good intentions, but isn't perfect and occasionally makes mistakes, to a nation with a history of mistakes who's motives are sometimes suspect... A nation that will sometimes do the wrong thing, but for the right reasons, to a country that's simply done wrong things.
Indoctrination is when kids are taught history from a one sided perspective. The proposals put forth by that school board are not only designed to insure that our children don't learn anti-social and violent behavior, but rather how to act in a civilized manner, to respect the rights of others, respect law enforcement and to show respect for authority... but also to insure that they are taught history from a factual, balanced, non-political, non-opinionated perspective, and learn all the things in our history that made this nation great, that over the last several decades have slowly disappeared from our children's history books.
Teaching our children the history that made America great and instilling in them the same pride and patriotism that was felt by my father and grandfather, would be the greatest gift we could give to our children, and would help to insure that America survives another 238 years. It's such a huge part of what made the American workforce the most industrious in the world, and gave us the determination needed both in Europe and here at home, to defeat Hitler and free 10's of millions of people in WWII. You may not see it, or maybe you fail to realize it, but with a loss of pride and patriotism, comes a loss of value and caring. People won't go the extra mile, make sacrifices and do what is necessary to preserve something that holds little value to them. If you don't believe me, then it's time to open your eyes right now and take a good, hard look at the people both in our society and in our government. There sure aren't many who are doing a lot of sacrificing, or going the extra mile for the country these days. Everyone is out for themselves and their own personal agendas, and you know as well as I do that we are slowly coming apart at the seams.
Indoctrination indeed...